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Stonehenge

It is a pleasure to meet under your chairmanship, Mr. Cummings. I wish you a very happy Christmas and a good new year. At dawn on Saturday, if the weather is clement, I will join a select group of enthusiasts at Stonehenge to witness the first sunrise after the winter solstice. It is a far more significant occasion than the summer solstice. Our ancestors calculated the exact date of the year's turn, when they could look forward to longer days and the green shoots of spring, and laid out Stonehenge accordingly. Stonehenge was inscribed as a world heritage site in 1986, and the UNESCO-approved management plan was published in April 2000. The stones are instantly recognisable, and are a worldwide symbol of our ancient heritage. They were shaped and erected more than 3,000 years ago, and their lintels, unique jointing and perfect geometry make Stonehenge the most sophisticated stone circle in the world. But it is more than just stones. Within the 2,600-hectare site are more than 400 scheduled ancient monuments in a ceremonial landscape that includes the avenue, the cursus and nearby Woodhenge. Just to the east lies Durrington Walls, where the people who built Stonehenge lived in a village of hundreds of houses that featured a stone-surfaced avenue. The secrets of Durrington Walls have only recently started to be revealed. Members of Parliament must consider the national interest as well as their constituency interests. Similarly, the Government have a duty to consider the implications of their national decisions for local communities. In November 1995, the planning conference on Stonehenge and the A303 resulted in 16 resolutions and a remarkable consensus among the representatives who attended. Sadly, that national and local consensus has slipped. Last week, a local survey by Vision News, Salisbury's online TV station, found that most people disagreed that the Government were right to cancel the Stonehenge A303 road project and tunnel. In fact, only one person who was interviewed favoured cancelling it. That surprised me. Despite some triumphalism from those who oppose the tunnel project, most people just want something to be done to minimise the negative impact of traffic congestion on their daily lives. They are proud of Stonehenge, but they mind more about getting to work and home again across the barrier of the choked A303. It is outrageous that the Government have abandoned my constituents in Winterbourne Stoke. That village and Chicklade to the west are now the only communities between London and the west of England without a bypass. If the A344 is closed, traffic will double on the A360 between Airman's Corner and Long Barrow roundabout and increase by a third on the A303 past the stones. Unless my constituents in Orcheston, Tilshead and Shrewton are served by a new junction at Airman's Corner and an A303 underpass at Long Barrow, their councillors will not agree to the closure of the A344. That agreement is essential to planning permission. Objective 11 of the management plan requires the A344 and A303 to be removed or screened. Interestingly, support is growing for the planting of trees along both roads, within the world heritage site. Will the Stonehenge project board please consider that? The Department for Transport has just saved itself more than £500 million and announced that any new money for even minor road improvements must come from the meagre south-west regional road budget. That is totally unacceptable. Why should people in Devon and Cornwall lose their road improvements to pay for the wreckage of a national road project that was funded from the Department for Transport's budget until 6 December? Meanwhile, my constituents in Larkhill, Bulford, Durrington and Amesbury will be plagued by rat-running to avoid the gridlock past the stones. There is increasing evidence of rat-running further south—down the A338 along the Bourne valley to Salisbury and then along the A30 through the Nadder valley to Hindon, bypassing the entire Stonehenge section of the A303.